Scanning your goods through the register one at a time at the local store is all well and good, but Brain Corporation has developed a much faster way to ring up your food. It’s a visual POS (Point of Sale) system that’s currently on trial in a bakery in Tokyo.

The system works by using a camera that recognizes all the food on your tray in just one second, which is much faster than having a member of staff put in the price of each item individually. It also means new staff can use the cash register system on their first day without any training because the system does all the pricing for them.

Although the system is currently being used for baked goods and sandwiches, it could easily be modified to recognize others items. As the process is based on shape and color recognition, it just needs to be taught what individual products look like so the camera can match the right object to the right price.

However, baked goods are often decorated by hand, meaning looks can vary so the system doesn’t always get it right. What makes this till really clever is the fact it can learn as it’s being used. If there is any doubt over what an object is, a yellow line appears around the product on the screen. The staff can then select the correct item and the system remembers it making it smarter for future transactions.

It’s easy to imagine this system being adapted for use in a range of different stores, and it would certainly cut down on queues because the total price of the products is tallied instantly. It might not always get it right, but the built-in learning process means it’s only going to get better.